Radio networks having a low power consumption are known in conjunction with the IEEE 802.15.4 Standard which is specialized for so-called “Low Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks” (Low Rate WPAN). These radio networks operate with low data transmission rates, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, have the special advantage of a long battery life of the devices or objects which are equipped with this radio network; the battery life can last up to some years, which correspondingly reduces the maintenance expenditure.na
Radio networks according to IEEE 802.15.4 comprise essentially a physical transmission unit (Physical Layer, PHY), a data link unit (Medium Access Layer, MAC) and a proprietary network unit (Network Layer). Such network units are known, for example, by the designations 6IoWPAN, ZigBee, WirelessHART or MiWi, this list of network units named not being exhaustive.
All network units have in common that they have transmission ranges of some 10 meters inside buildings, the range being reducible by reinforced concrete walls, interferences, disturbances or by device installations in metallic control cabinets. As a rule, such problems are eliminated by additional installations of routers or network coordinators which, although it increases the number of network hops of objects communicating with one another, can enable communication to be carried out in the first place, on the other hand.
It is a fact that such additional installations of routers or network coordinators in buildings having numerous storeys or in very large buildings appear to be complex, not only with respect to the hardware installed and associated with costs, but also in the numerous—and thus time-consuming—network hops between communicating devices.
Users of the radio networks having a low power consumption, being discussed here, currently bow to the increased installation effort in order to be able to utilize the advantages of such radio networks which are otherwise appreciated.
Thus, it is described, for example in “ZigBee-to-Internet Interconnection Architectures”, SYSTEMS, 2007, ICONS '07, SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON, IEEE, PI, 1 Apr. 2007 (Apr. 1, 2007), ISBN: 978-0-7695-2807-6, by MIROSLAV SVEDA ET AL, how the “range” of a ZigBee network, which is fundamentally based on radio links, can be extended in a hard-wired fashion by a TCP/IP bridge. Although such a TCP/IP bridge then provides for communication between objects in the ZigBee network which no longer have a radio link between themselves, this advantage is purchased with correspondingly comparatively great hardware expenditure compared with the known ZigBEE hardware. In the publication “Wireless Sensor Network and Sensor Fusion Technology for Ubiquitous Smart Living Space Applications (Invited Paper)”, UNIVERSAL COMMUNICATION, 2008, ISUC '08, SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON, IEEE, Piscataway, N.J., USA, 15 Dec. 2008 (Dec. 12, 2008), ISBN: 978-0-7695-3433-6, by MING-WHEI FENG ET AL., a quite similar system jump between a ZigBee radio network and a TCP/IP bridge is illuminated.